Since appocomaster's announcement i've had alot of questions about this new system and some people suggested i should try to explain it on the forums since i had a day or 2 more than the rest of you to adjust to the new reality.

How did the old ETA system work?

PA had a system that consisted out of 3 different base ETA's. In this system your base ETA was tied directly to the class of the ship.

FI/CO: ETA 12 (TT -0) or ETA 8 (TT-4)

Fr/DE: ETA 13 (TT -0) or ETA 9 (TT-4)

Cr/Bs: ETA 14 (TT -0) or ETA 10 (TT-4)

Alot of people will now go: why are ships now 1 tick slower? They are not. People are used to seeing the ETA's after the fleets have launched which would be:

FI/CO: ETA 11 (TT -0) or ETA 7 (TT-4)

Fr/DE: ETA 12 (TT -0) or ETA 8 (TT-4)

Cr/Bs: ETA 13 (TT -0) or ETA 9 (TT-4)

But a fleet has an ETA too before it's launched. And those ETA's have always been 12, 13 & 14.

The ETA of your fleet was detirmened by the slowest ship within it. If you had 1 Fi and 1 Bs in a fleet, the ETA would always be 14. If you only had Fi in it, it would be 12.

How is the new system different?

The following things have not changed:
PA still has 3 base ETA's
The ETA's after launch are still the same as in the old system
Your ETA is still based on the slowest ship in your fleet

But what has than changed?
Upto now a FI ship always had to have base ETA 12 (TT-0) because it was a FI ship and the ETA was tied tot he class.

In the new system the dependancy that your ETA was decided based on the class of the ship was removed. Now each ship has it's own base ETA which you can see on the stats page ETA column. Either 12, 13 or 14.

Now the phantom which is a Fi class ship can have base ETA 13, while the banshee which is a Fi class ship too still has base eta 12. This allows the phantom to travel faster alone than when it's joined by the banshee.

This also means that you can make a BS pod have base ETA 12 and a co pod base ETA 14. But for simplicity the base ETA's of pods were not touched and each attack class can still make it's traditional ETA meaning:

FI/CO: ETA 12 (TT -0) or ETA 8 (TT-4)

Fr/DE: ETA 13 (TT -0) or ETA 9 (TT-4)

Cr/Bs: ETA 14 (TT -0) or ETA 10 (TT-4)

But individually some attack ships will be faster outside an attack fleet. Some defence ships will be slower than you are used too, others faster. Take the broker for example. It's a BS ship that targets FR. Traditionally it was have base ETA 14. This round it has base ETA 12. Which means the broker has 2 ticks to defend against FR.

How will the new system affect our game play?
You can't simply select all your FI and assume it's has base ETA 12.
To help you PA team has already added a field on most pages which state the ETA of each ship. Both on the alliance pages as your fleets page. They are also still looking into making it more visible on the fleets page and adding an option to move ships based on ETA. But yes you have to be a little bit more carefull what you do now.

In the past only the top alliances use what we refer to as prelaunch def. Defend an FR attack with BS because they JGP their members and launch their def at the same time as the attack. With this new system everyone can launch a BS fleet to defend an FR fleet if the BS base ETA is the same or lower without prelaunching it. So you have to be a bit more carefull when calculating your battles and check out which ships could be in an base ETA 12 fleet.

It also adds in alot more tactical options concerning strategy. You an now combine different ships of different classes which have the same ETA into 1 attack or defence fleet.

Hopefully the basics of the new base ETA system are clear now. It will certainly make for an interesting round. If you have any questions feel free to ask here and i'll do my best to answer them or visit one of the friendly helpfull people in #support.

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The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

Edit: on a first look it only kills the need of activity to PL defense

Or in the spiders case you now have a Fi ship that only has 1 tick to defend against DE. I mean technically you could make something that could reskin the ships into ETA order (HR have a PA reskin I think?) Then you ate just in the same boat as before. So I guess apart from annoyingly make you trawl the stats page more it will have no affect on the round? Just need to pay attention to it when pick strats.

Some people are complaining but, in my limited PA experience, it has opened up attacking (and some defensive) play a lot. People have been caught out sometimes and have lost ships but making attacking less predictable by offering more ship/race combos has made it a better experience. Perhaps not as much fun for DCs :P

It was a quick fix on already made stats... i'm sure if the stats are designed with that new eta in mind, it can make things interesting.

I am quite sure it can't. There is just not enough room you can wiggle this, without it being abuseble. It will be pretty much a repeat round after round.
Only thing it adds is more defensive nature to stats. So please elaborate what makes you sure, just don't say you are without anything to back it up.

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The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

(I'm not being rhetorical. I haven't really paid attention and I want to know.)

__________________
The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

(I'm not being rhetorical. I haven't really paid attention and I want to know.)

Bigger class "defships" that gets eta advantage. Giving more room for defence. Can't do it the other way around, unless you want 2+ tick eta advantage on def.
Do it on attack class ships and pods, and we may aswell scrap the original metaclass eta's. Do it just on the ships and not pods, could make scetchy scenarios where people analyze incs wrong, but most likely not.
It is basicly a feature to help things get more defensive.
As it "has" to be the higher class metas that gets reduction base eta and not Fi/Co class.

In the current set only spiders was tampered with in Fi/Co meta. Giving it Fr/De base eta as a def ship vs DE. All other adjustments are Fr/De/Cr/Bs that attack downwards, or Fr/De that defends upwards. I'd love to see how any statcreator can do something different with that and yet have balanced stats.

I try to imagine seeing a Co attack fleet having Fr/De base eta, and a Fr/De fleet having Fi/Co base eta...

In my opinion, Fi/Co has long been overpowered by the combined advantages of fewer potential alliance defense ships (increasing the odds of landing attacks), shorter research time (resulting in earlier attacks and more time to spend on other research), and low ETA (giving more attacks per round).

Compare that with Cr/Bs. They takes 6 times as long to research as Fi/Co. They can be sent less often than Fi/Co (assuming a landing, once every 20 ticks instead of once every 16). And they can be defended against by 4 classes at alliance ETA, to 2 for Fi/Co. Often (but not always), classes don't fire at themselves, skewing matters even more, to 3 def classes vs 1 def class.

Fr/De is in the middle, though closer to Cr/Bs than Fi/Co. They take 3 times as long to research as Fi/Co, but only half as long as Cr/Bs. They launch every 18 ticks. They share the worst-drawback of Cr/Bs, though, which is that they can be defended against by 4 (or 3) classes.

Given that, I think it's reasonable to hurt Fi/Co a bit by making most anti-Fi/Co ships able to defend at Fi/Co ETA.

Does this make the game more defensive, in isolation? I'd say yes: more potential defense ships means the game becomes more defensive. The stats should be carefully balanced to counter-act that change, because Simtarion is no fun. I don't think the change necessarily means balance is now totally 100% impossible, though. Lots of changes have made the game more or less defensive, but we've always been able to compensate for that (though not always as willing as I would've liked).

Personally, if balancing the metaclasses was the only reason this change was made (and it might not have been), I would've preferred to see a different approach: invert metaclass ETAs. Cr/Bs ETA 8, Fi/Co ETA 10. That way, the slowest ships take the least time to research, and vice versa. Alternatively, invert the research tree, Cr/Bs first, Fi/Co last. It's a much more elegant solution, because it doesn't add anything, just changes something that already exists. Admittedly it's not a complete fix, because the fastest metaclass will still only face half or a third of the potential defense ships than the other two, and better ETA is more important than shorter research time.

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The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

Last edited by Mzyxptlk; 22 Nov 2017 at 18:28.
Reason: Half, not a quarter,

Alternatively, invert the research tree, Cr/Bs first, Fi/Co last. It's a much more elegant solution, because it doesn't add anything, just changes something that already exists, but admittedly it's not a complete fix, because the fastest metaclass will still only face a quarter or a third of the potential defense ships than the other two, and better ETA is more important than shorter research time.

" Fi/Co has long been overpowered "
Not sure Co is overpowered really. In this round there was plenty of Fi because it is has been so easy to fake fleets in ST round, so most people naturally have a decent supply of Fi. Cath players were a bit OP last round and were balanced out by having only Fi ship with base ETA13. They still did their main job, support and def, quite well.
"worst-drawback of Cr/Bs, though, which is that they can be defended against by 4 (or 3)"
I think you are referring to MT ships again here. In this round, Cr has actually been quite effective. Most alliances part-covered Co/De quite well early-mid game and only later on did people have enough resources to spread defence to cover those bigger classes.

Playing as Etd, the ability to mix in Priests with same ETA as Co fleet has been a good feature. Most Co fleets by default were def'd by Harpies and Recluse, so the ability to smash the low init and EMP with a hidden De fleet was great.

" I think it's reasonable to hurt Fi/Co a bit by making most anti-Fi/Co ships able to defend at Fi/Co ETA "
This is exactly what is happening now across all classes. Not sure why Roach and Clippers (De anti-Fi) were not also given lowest ETA, maybe to balance or experiment between races a bit.

Not sure Co is overpowered really. In this round there was plenty of Fi because it is has been so easy to fake fleets in ST round, so most people naturally have a decent supply of Fi. Cath players were a bit OP last round and were balanced out by having only Fi ship with base ETA13. They still did their main job, support and def, quite well.

I mean on a game mechanics level, and more generally than just this round. Of course, stats makers can and do compensate for the inherent imbalances, but there's no reason for them to exist in the first place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cowkimon

I think you are referring to MT ships again here. In this round, Cr has actually been quite effective. Most alliances part-covered Co/De quite well early-mid game and only later on did people have enough resources to spread defence to cover those bigger classes.

No, I'm referring to the fact that there's 4 classes that are allowed to fire at Fi/Co: Fi, Co, Fr and De. Of those, only Fi and Co can make ally ETA, or could at least, before this change. Cr and Bs almost never fire at Fi/Co. On the other hand, Fr and De can be 'legally' targetted by up to 6 classes (but usually 4 or 5), and up to 4 (but usually 3) can make ally ETA. Cr and Bs are in the same boat as Fr and De: 3 classes fire at it (usually Fr, De and either Cr or Bs), all of which can make ally ETA.

__________________
The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.